Games
by clp66
Summary: Part III of the "Susan Chronicals." Susan and House's relationship grows and together they overcome an adversarial situation at PPTH.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: The following story is the third in the series of the "Susan Chronicles". Susan was introduced in "Not Alone" as a lab technician that was hired by the board and forced upon House to do all his lab testing due to him being the cause of high turn-over rates in the hospital's main lab. In addition to being a very skilled lab technician, she had a special secret for House to discover. In "Testing" Susan underwent a number of trials as House's lab tech that affected her not only as a lab technician and employee of PPTH, but personally. In this story, Susan's relationship with House grows and together they overcome an adversarial situation at PPTH. The timing of this episode is during the first half of Season 7._

_Disclaimer: I do not own House, but only borrow the characters to tell my tale. Susan however is completely my invention. Nor do I own Kansas or the album "Leftoverture" from which "Carry On My Wayward Son" is taken._

_Part I: "Not Alone" Story ID: 6576430_

_Part II: "Testing" Story ID: 6593800_

_I hope you enjoy this story and I look forward to any feedback that you may have._

GAMES

by clp66

Chapter 1

"Carry on my wayward son, there'll be peace when you are done….." sang out from her iPod stereo speakers. Susan sat at her desk in the lab with a pad of paper and a pen deep in thought. In front of her were several pieces of paper with diagrams drawn all over them. Each of the pages had titles written at the top and the diagrams consisted of ovals, squares and diamonds with arrows flowing from one shape to the other. Some of the diagrams were fairly straight forward and others were very complicated and hard to follow. These diagrams were crossed out and tossed off to the side with "too complicated" scribbled across the front. Susan took off her glasses, set them on her desk and rubbed her face and eyes tiredly. When she removed her hands from her face Dr. House was sitting in front of her desk. "Oh, I didn't hear you come in," she said as she turned down the music.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"They're process flow diagrams," she replied

"I know what they are," he responded, "I asked what you were doing."

"I'm working on my procedure manual," Susan answered.

"Look around you," Dr. House said. "Do you see anybody else in this lab?"

Susan didn't bother looking around and said, "You."

"You know what I'm trying to say. You're the only person in this lab, I think you know what your own procedures are; you don't need a procedure manual" he said.

"You wouldn't think so would you?" said Susan, "but regulations require that I have a manual in this lab and you know that."

"Why don't you just use the manual in the main lab? If it's good enough for them, it ought to be good enough for you" House replied.

"I can refer to their manuals, but I have to have ready access to them and they're not electronic. However, since I work for _YOU_, and not every other doctor in this hospital, the manuals in the main lab wouldn't do me any good anyway. The things I have to do in here for your patients tend to be a bit more complicated than what they do in there, and for those few procedures that are similar, my instrumentation is different. Remember I got all the used and abused equipment when this lab was set up. So, I might as well write them all from scratch." she said. "Besides, I don't like their format – they're hard to follow for somebody that needs to walk in and do a procedure off the cuff."

Susan leaned back in her chair, stretched and then put her glasses back on, "So, I'm sure you didn't come in here to talk about procedure manuals, what brings you to my world Dr. House?" she asked.

"I wanted to see what you were doing for lunch." he replied.

"Wilson too busy?" she asked.

"I thought you might like some company" House said then noticed the unconvinced look on Susan's face and quickly added, "And yeah – Wilson's attending a 'lunch and listen seminar' today."

Susan smiled and opened her desk drawer to get money out of her purse, "I assume I'm buying." She said.

"Of course, you don't expect me to pay do you?" He asked.

"Well no, not really," she said with a smile.

In the cafeteria, Susan and Dr. House placed their orders and sat down at an empty table. Before he even started on his own plate, he reached across the table and stole a couple of Susan's fries. "You have fries on your own plate," Susan scolded.

"Yours taste better," House replied.

Susan reached across the table and started to grab a couple of fries from House's plate, but she wasn't quick enough and House slapped her hand. "Eat your own," he said. Susan laughed as she withdrew her hand and picked up her hamburger.

Across the cafeteria Martha Masters sat studying one of her textbooks while eating her lunch. She looked up from her book in time to see the playful exchange between House and Susan. "Weird isn't it?" she heard someone say. She looked up and saw it was Nurse Jeffery, "I think they've got something going on and I'm dying to catch them at it," he said.

"No, I'm sure you're mistaken. Dr. House and Dr. Cuddy are together; he wouldn't do anything to mess that up." Martha said.

"Who do you think you're talking about? Dr. House lies right and left about everything; you think he'd have any compunction about getting something on the side? He'd do it just to see how long he'd get away with it," Jeffery said.

"Well, you got me there." Masters replied. "Still though, it's none of our business."

Martha looked back at her text to continue reading as Jeffery sat down at her table. "Did you know she donated half her liver to Dr. House several months back?"

Martha being new to the team hadn't learned all the history, and she wasn't privy to a lot going around her. Dr. House didn't trust her because she was "too honest" and the team wasn't warming up to her they way she had hoped. It was hard working in that environment, and she resented being left out. "No, I hadn't heard that. It's remarkable she was a match for him, but I can see where that might be a bonding point for them," she said being drawn into Jeffrey's gossip while she watched House and Susan interact.

"It _was_ quite a coincidence and the entire hospital was whispering about it. I tell you there were quite a few people that were not happy things worked out so well for him;" Jeffery said conspiratorially, "myself included."

Martha looked indignantly at Jeffery and said, "You wish he would have died? He's one of the most brilliant doctors there is and has helped so many patients that nobody else could. Why would you wish that?"

Jeffrey backtracked, "I don't wish that he would have died, but you know the way he treats people. It might have been nice if he couldn't recover to the point that he could come back to work. Certainly things would be much more peaceful around here."

Martha agreed that Jeffrey had a point, but she thought House's contributions to the hospital were more important than his misanthropic tendencies.

"Well whatever you think, they've bonded in some way. Several weeks back I saw them sitting together at the jogging park. I took a picture of them; I'll email it to you," Jeffery said.

Martha got up from her table telling Jeffrey she needed to find a quiet place to study and left the cafeteria. As she passed by their table, she gave Susan a hard stare. Susan watched her pass by and asked, "What do you suppose that look was for?"

"Who knows," House said as she stole more fries from Susan's plate. Susan pushed her plate toward House. "They don't taste as good when it's OK if I take them," he said.

Susan grinned at him, "I'm full."

Jeffrey sat back in his chair and watched Martha walk out of the cafeteria. He saw the look she gave Susan and knew he was well on his way to having an ally on House's team. One way or the other, he was going to find a way of getting back at House for all the abuse that House gave him.

Martha wandered over to the medical school library and found a comfortable chair to read and study. She decided to check her email before she started reading again and got out her laptop. Wireless internet access was available for the students and staff in the library. She had several emails from fellow students in her class concerning their group project and one from a professor outlining the requirements for the next paper. At the very bottom was an email with an attachment. She didn't recognize the email address, but the attachment was a photo of Dr. House with Susan at the jogging park. This must have been the photo that Nurse Jeffrey was referring to. Martha enlarged the photo on her screen so she could see it better. In the photo, Susan was visibly upset with tears running down her face. Dr. House had a very gentle look on his face as he spoke to her. Martha supposed that Dr. House had a gentle side to him, but she never saw it. Apparently Susan was privy to a part of Dr. House that most people weren't. Maybe Jeffrey was right, maybe there was something going on between the two of them. Martha closed the email and shut down her computer. She needed to study and not involve herself in things that did not concern her.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

House walked in the clinic and signed in for duty. The duty nurse handed him a file and told him the patient was ready in exam room one. As he started in the room he asked the duty nurse to page Susan to clinic duty. He entered the room. A young mother was sitting on the exam table holding her young son. "Well, here you are again," he said.

"Yes, and I think this is the worse case yet," the young mother replied.

Dr. House picked up the otoscope and looked in the little boy's ears. "This is the sixth ear infection in as many months," he said. "I think it's time to have tubes put in his ears. I'm going to refer you to Dr. Martin. He's our Otolaryngologist on staff and he would be doing the surgery to insert the tubes." Dr. House explained as he wrote yet another prescription for cephalosporin as the youngster was allergic to penicillin based antibiotics. He turned around to give her the script he noticed the fear in her face. "There's nothing to worry about; it's a simple surgery," he said.

"But it's surgery. Will they have to knock him out?" she asked apprehensively. "I don't want him to have to go under anesthesia."

"It'd be a bit cruel to put them in without putting him to sleep, but if that's what you want I'll make sure that Dr. Martin knows," House looked at the mother who was now looking at him with a very shocked look on her face.

"Dr. House," she said, "I'm not going to torture my son, I just want to make sure that the surgery is absolutely necessary. I don't want to risk anesthetic if he doesn't really need surgery."

"It's like this, he either has the surgery which stops the repeated ear infections or you risk him losing his hearing. Now you decide which is worse, a lifetime a hearing loss or a few minutes of anesthesia." He said. The young mother agreed to the surgery and left the clinic.

By the time House was ready for his second patient Susan had arrived in the clinic. "I'm sorry I'm late, I got caught up with my procedure manual and lost track of time," she explained.

Dr. House gave her a look that would have made anybody else cringe, but Susan didn't flinch. The duty nurse watched the exchange and as Dr. House turned to go into exam two, she whispered to Susan, "Good luck."

Susan followed him into exam room two. In exam room two was an elderly woman who practically threw herself at Dr. House with a big hug and a smack on the cheek. "Dr. House, I'm so glad it's you that came in to see me today."

Peeling her off of him and holding her out to arms length, House said, "And I'm surprised you're still among the living; what brings you into the clinic today, Georgia?"

Georgia looked over at Susan whose mouth had dropped open and was starring wide-eyed at what she was seeing. "Who's the young chick Dr. House? Got yourself some arm candy, did you?" she said in a sultry manner as she winked at him.

Susan interrupted, "No ma'am – I'm just a lab tech here to gather specimens."

Dr. House asked again, "_Why_ are you here?"

"Oh, well see I've had this …..," she started and then ended her sentence with a fit of coughing. Susan grabbed a small disposable cup next to the sink, filled it with water and handed it to Georgia. As Georgia calmed and sipped the water, Dr. House got out his stethoscope and listened intently to her lungs. He checked her throat, felt her glands, looked in her ears, and took her temperature.

"Where is your son?" he asked.

"He's at work. I didn't want to bother him, so I called cab," she replied. She winked at him and continued, "You know he always gets so stuffy when I want to visit my handsome young doctor."

Susan was standing behind Georgia at this point biting her lip to keep from laughing as she watched and listened to the exchange. She hadn't ever seen Dr. House embarrassed before and it was immensely entertaining.

"Well, you need to call him. I'm admitting you to the hospital," House said.

"Why, what's wrong? It's just a nagging cough isn't it?" she asked.

"I need to run some tests, but I'm afraid it's more than just a nagging cough," he replied. "Susan, pull some blood and run a CMP, Lipid and CBC for some basic chemistries and we need a sputum specimen for culture as well."

Dr. House left the room to talk to the nurse and as Susan prepared to take her blood, Georgia asked, "What do you think is wrong?"

"I'm just a lab tech, Georgia. I gather specimens and run the tests he orders, I can't diagnose you. That's his job. Let me get the blood and then I'll give you a sputum cup to spit in. Afterwards, one of the nurses will be in to help get you admitted and settled into your room," Susan said as she smiled gently at Georgia.

As Susan left the exam room with the specimens in hand, the duty nurse passed her going into the room to get Georgia admitted to the hospital. As she passed by she said, "Dr. House wants to see you in exam room one."

Susan went into exam room one where Dr. House was waiting for her. "Did she say anything when I left the room?" he asked.

"She wanted to know what I thought was wrong with her and I told her that I was just a lab tech and that I wasn't able to diagnose anything. What's the story with her? I think she's cute the way she flirts with you," Susan replied.

"She has brain damage from an old syphilis infection. She's cured, but the damage was already done before she got the treatment. It left her with an interesting side effect and now she's always feeling a bit, well as _you_ like to say, 'amorous'. She's perfectly harmless, if a bit overwhelming." he explained. "Listen, I don't want you to finish out clinic duty today, go on up to the lab and start on her specimens. I want to rule out pneumonia first, but I'm afraid she has lung cancer. I'm going to send the kids in to do a lung biopsy, probably will have Masters do it with Chase supervising her so she gets the practice. When you get the biopsy, take care of it. You know what to do."

Susan nodded and as she started out the door she said, "I think that's the first time I've ever been referred to as 'arm candy', that was pretty funny."

"You could be somebody's arm candy easy enough," House said.

"Right," Susan said sarcastically, "Like every guy's dream is to have a used up middle-aged woman hanging on their arm. I'll get this stuff worked up and get you the results as soon as I can."

Susan walked out the door and Dr. House followed behind wondering about her low self esteem. Susan was smart and nice looking and very considerate of other people. Even if she was in her mid-forties, there was no reason why she shouldn't have someone that cared about her. He put his thoughts aside as he grabbed another file and started toward exam room three. Nurse Jeffrey walked into the clinic just as Susan and House exited exam room one and went their separate ways. He asked the duty nurse which patient was in the exam room that Dr. House just vacated. "There wasn't one; he just needed to talk to Susan privately for a minute." Jeffrey just nodded as he thought, "Right, I bet they just needed to _talk_ privately."

Down in the lab, Susan prepared the blood specimens for testing. While the blood in the chemistry tube was spinning, she ran the CBC. The white count was high which would be expected with both pneumonia and lung cancer. She performed a manual differential count on the specimen and recorded the results in the LIS system. Next she put the blood on the analyzer and entered in the tests for the CMP and Lipid panels as Dr. House requested. While that was running, she pulled out a culture plate to start the series of microbiological tests that Dr. House would need to rule out pneumonia. After she put the specimen in the incubator, she went over to her desk to work on her procedure manual. She was just finishing up the last of her diagrams when Martha walked in. "Hello Dr. Masters, how are you today?"

"You know I'm not a doctor yet," she replied.

"You're not a medical doctor, but I understand that you have a PhD. That makes the title 'Doctor' appropriate and it would be impolite of me to call you anything else until you tell me otherwise," Susan said.

Martha smiled, "Well, around here calling me 'Doctor' gives people the wrong impression, so why don't you just call me Martha for now," she said.

"Ok, Martha, what can I do for you?" Susan asked.

"Nothing, I just thought I would come down here to visit. I'd like to get to know you a little better," she said. "What are you working on?"

"My procedure manual," Susan replied.

"What's with all the flow diagrams?" Martha asked.

"I use a document system called 'Quality Systems for the Laboratory' that basically works off of process flow diagrams. You determine the process that a specimen goes through step by step with the flow diagram and for every box that you draw; you will write a procedure that goes with that box. It helps a person see the whole picture of what needs to happen instead of just seeing little pieces of it. Here I'll show you," Susan explained.

Susan showed her a diagram explaining the different steps for running a CBC test.

"See, here we start with 'Specimen Received' and then the specimen travels through each step of the process until it ends with 'Results Reported'. Each one of these steps has its own procedure."

"This is a lot like Six Sigma," Martha noted.

"Similar, but not the same; this is geared specifically for the medical laboratory, but the outcome is the same. Everything has a process and every process has documented procedures with documented outcomes. It's a great way to stay organized with the procedures. The regulatory folks love this stuff" Susan said.

Martha's pager went off.

"That'll be Dr. Chase. You're going to be performing a lung biopsy on a sweet old lady," Susan told Martha. "Bring the specimen back when you finish, I'll need to start processing it right away."

"How do you know?" Martha asked.

"Dr. House and I saw this patient in the clinic this afternoon," Susan said.

Martha left the lab and then the chemistry analyzer beeped to let Susan know the chemistries were finished. Susan verified the results in the LIS system and sent Dr. House the results electronically.

As Martha made her way to meet Dr. Chase, she wondered why Dr. House always took Susan to the clinic. She was a lab tech, not a nurse. She couldn't help with procedures and could only collect the most non-invasive specimens for analysis. He certainly didn't need her there; for that matter, why did he even have his own lab tech? Every other doctor in the hospital used the main laboratory for their testing needs. What was so special about her? Martha agreed that Susan's lab skills were among the best she had ever seen in her short tenure, but she figured that came with practice. It was obvious that Susan had been around the block a few times. Not that she was ugly or anything, but she was definitely at least in her 40's. She was probably nearly as old if not older than her own mother. And why was Dr. House always so nice to her? The only time she had ever seen him badger Susan, it was obvious that it was just playful badgering; nothing like what she had to deal with. Maybe Jeffrey was right, maybe they did have something going on. Dr. House was always riding her so hard; if she could catch him in something it might be worth it to have something to throw back in his face sometime. She decided that she would go about her investigation quietly so as not to let the others on the team wonder what she was up to.

Susan went to Dr. House's office and sat down in the chair in front of his desk. He'd been reading a journal and he looked up at her over his glasses. "Does Dr. Cuddy ever come in here while you're reading?" Susan asked.

"Occasionally, why?" he replied.

"Because if she does, I'm surprised she manages to keep her hands off you. You look really sexy when you wear your reading glasses," Susan teased.

"What do you want?" House said exasperatedly as he took his glasses off.

"I need some software and I can't get the IT department to give it to me," she said. "I need some flow charting software so I draw out my process diagrams properly."

"Why won't they give it to you?" he asked

"They said I'm not authorized to have that software and that I need approval from a department head," she answered.

"I'll let them know you need it," he said, "Have you started on the lung biopsy from Georgia?"

"I don't have it yet, but as soon as Martha brings it to me I'll get started on it. Do you want frozen or fixed sections?" Susan asked.

"Fixed," he replied.

Susan left his office and House pulled out his phone. "Chase, why isn't that biopsy in the lab by now?" House listened to Chase's discourse, hung up the phone and went to the patient's room.

"Oh Dr. House, I'm so glad you came by. As cute as they are, I'm tired of arguing with this young couple. I'd much prefer that you take care of me," Georgia said.

"Georgia, this young lady is my student and Dr. Chase is one of my fellows, you are in good hands with them. Dr. Chase is an experienced surgeon and he will be supervising her while she performs your biopsy. Please let them take your biopsy." Dr. House implored.

"Well, if that's what you want I'll let them do it, but only because you asked," Georgia said as she pointed at him. "I'll do anything for you," she added with a coy smile.

"Thank you," House left the room and Martha looked at Chase questioningly. Chase just shrugged and motioned for her to get on with the biopsy. A half hour later, the biopsy was finished and Martha took it to Susan in the lab.

"Great. Thank you," Susan said.

"Do you mind if I watch?" Martha asked.

"Not at all, but I can't do this here in this lab. I don't have the right equipment, so we'll have to head down to histology." Susan said.

Susan took the biopsy to the grossing lab and asked the pathology assistant to gross the tissue for her. That complete, Susan prepared the tissue for processing. The histology techs were putting a basket of tissue together for processing and Susan added the lung biopsy to the batch. "This will process over the next 8 hours during which time all the water in the tissue will be removed and wax will infiltrate the tissue so that it will hold its structure during the cutting process," she explained. "We'll pick it up in the morning, embed it in a block of wax and section it with a microtome for staining. Will you want to observe the rest of the process?" Susan asked.

Martha indicated that she did.

"Meet me in the lab at 9 tomorrow morning and we'll get started." Susan said.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three:

The next morning as Susan was working up Georgia's sputum specimen, the IT supervisor walked in and sat at her desk to load flow charting software on her computer. His face was pale and his lips pressed thin, it was obvious he was upset. "Are you OK?" Susan asked.

"Your boss is an ass," he replied. "I don't know how you can stand to work for him."

"He's not an ass to me," Susan said.

"And I can guess why," the man said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Susan asked.

"As if you don't know; there, your software is loaded." He stormed out of the lab.

Susan stared after him, shrugged her shoulders and sat down at her desk. She resulted out the specimen and sent the results to Dr. House. When she was done she pulled up the software that was just loaded and started playing with it. Once she felt comfortable with the software, she started drawing out her flow diagrams that she had sketched the day before.

At 9:00 Martha walked in the lab. "Great, you're here. Are you ready, oh never mind, you're not," Susan said pointing at Martha's shoes. "You don't want to wear those in the histology lab; you do have any flats or sneakers?"

"I wore these yesterday, you didn't say anything about them then," Martha said.

"Yes, but that was in the grossing lab where there isn't wax all over the floor. Technically, you're not supposed to be wearing heels in the lab at all, but since you only just come in and out, I've never said anything." Susan said.

Martha left to change her shoes and when she returned they went to histology. Georgia's lung biopsy was finished processing. Susan grabbed it and went over to the embedding station. She showed Martha how to orient the tissue in the mold and then filled it with just enough wax to coat the bottom of the mold. She used a press and put a slight amount of pressure on the biopsy to seat the tissue down flat. After that she put a tissue cassette on top of the mold and filled the entire thing with wax. She then put it on a cooling plate to allow the wax to harden for a while. While it was hardening, Susan asked Martha if she had ever embedded any tissue and offered to teach her. The histology techs were behind and welcomed the help, so Susan sat Martha in the chair and taught her how to embed several different types of tissue. By the time she had embedded 20 different pieces of tissue, the lung biopsy was ready to be sectioned. Susan took the biopsy over to a microtome and adjusted it for sectioning. She showed Martha how she 'faced' the block to prepare it for slicing and then she started sectioning the biopsy in 4 micron thin slices. Before long a ribbon of very thin sections of wax with tissue in them was made. Susan put this ribbon of wax in a water bath and using microscope slides picked up two sections for each slide. When she had prepared 10 slides, she removed the block from the microtome and gathered the block and the slides to take back to her lab. "We can do the staining in our lab," she said.

Over the next couple of hours Susan de-waxed, hydrated, stained and cover slipped a couple of the slides for H&E stains. "If you are only staining 2 slides, why did you make 10 of them?" Martha asked.

"It's always good to have extra slides ready to stain. Dr. House may ask for an IHC or other kind of stain to verify certain infections, parasites or to differentiate one type of cancer from another. This way, you don't have to waste more tissue by facing off the block again. Additionally, if the slides are never used for diagnosis, you can use them to practice for new staining protocols or go back to them for teaching purposes etc." Susan explained.

Susan put the slides under the microscope and looked around the tissue. "Well, Georgia has cancer," Susan said.

"How would you know? You're just a lab tech, not a physician." Martha said indignantly.

Susan decided not to be offended at that remark and said, "When you've looked at as many tissues under the scope as I have, you learn what to look for. No, I'm not a physician and I can't legally diagnose anything – but that doesn't mean that I haven't learned a few things over the years," Susan found the appropriate places on the slide and snapped a few images at several different magnification settings. She sent the images over to Dr. House electronically and then said, "You should probably go up to the conference room to see if Dr. House wants you to do anything else for her. He'll probably just go ahead and refer her over to Dr. Wilson, but she's special to him so he may decide to work her up himself."

Martha couldn't believe that Susan would have any clue if the patient had cancer; after all she was just a lab tech. Martha had seen how adept Susan was a handling the biopsy material and she had to admit that she learned quite a bit from her and the embedding station today, but she had to be kidding herself if she thought she was smart enough to diagnose something as complicated as cancer. As Martha walked up to the conference room she thought that Susan had overstepped her bounds telling her the patient's diagnosis before the doctors even had a chance to look at the tissue. "Well, Susan seems to think that your patient has cancer, as if she would know what cancer looked like," Martha snickered as she walked into the conference room. Every member of the team looked up at Martha at that comment and she quickly added, "After all she's just a lab tech. Sure she's probably good at what she does, but it's not like she really knows diagnostics."

"Open a little wider," House said. "In fact, she does have cancer. I've referred her over to Dr. Wilson. Sit down, we have a case."

Susan walked in to the conference room and sat down across from Martha. Dr. Foreman began the differential by introducing the patient's symptoms. "The patient is a 32 year old male with….." As Foreman droned on about the case, Martha looked at Susan. She wondered if she come into the room early enough to hear her comments.

"Masters!" House said, "Do you have an opinion or are you just going to sit there wondering if Susan heard you or not?"

"I wasn't listening," Martha said.

"Obviously; Go get a better history on the patient," House said. Properly admonished, Martha left the room.

House dismissed the rest of the team to run more tests and check for environmental causes.

Susan was sent with Taub to collect specimens from the patient's home. "You haven't been on a field trip yet, do you have any issues breaking into the patient's home?" he asked.

"I'm not thrilled about it, but we're not breaking anything or stealing, just collecting specimens. I'm rationalizing it by telling myself we're doing it for the patient's well being," she said.

"Masters won't do it," Taub said

"And I understand why she's uncomfortable with it. I'm not going to judge her for not wanting to break into somebody's home," Susan countered.

"I know you heard her when you came into the conference room, doesn't that bother you?" he asked.

"She's a kid. She's smart and she knows it and she's trying to fit in with the rest of you. I just spent the morning showing her basic histology and correcting her mistakes at the embedding station. It had to be demoralizing to her that a 'simple lab tech' was showing her things she thought she should already know as a med student," Susan said.

"You're not just a 'simple lab tech' Susan," Taub said.

"I appreciate you saying that, but she knows nothing about me and in the few weeks that she has been here, there hasn't been any need for me to do anything that couldn't easily have been done in the main lab. I'm sure my presence on the team doesn't make any sense to her," Susan said. "She's just trying to elevate herself on the team and since I'm on the lowest rung of the ladder, she's making sure that she sits at a higher level than me. I'm not worried about it, so don't you be."

After Taub and Susan had collected specimens from the patient's home, Susan took them back to the lab to start analysis. There wasn't anything remarkable in anything, so she finalized the findings and emailed the results to the team. Finished with her work for the day, Susan went to the sink to wash her hands. The paper towels were gone. "Odd," she thought. She knew she had just opened a new case a couple of days ago. She looked around and then spied them on the top shelf of the cabinet above the sink. That's not where she put them. She hoisted herself up and stood on top of the cabinet to reach the paper towels. While she was there, she pulled them all off the top shelf letting them drop to the floor. The she jumped down and put the towels back down on the lowest shelf where they belonged. After she finished re-organizing the shelf, she grabbed her things and went home.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four:

At dinner that evening House was telling Cuddy about Masters' foopah in the conference room. "And you're sure Susan heard her," she said.

"No doubt," House replied. "She's a class act though, acted as though she didn't hear anything and just sat down and listened to the differential. I sent on her first breaking and entering field trip as a reward."

"Only you would think of breaking and entering into somebody's home as a reward," Cuddy said. Changing the subject Cuddy said, "I've been thinking about having Susan teach. What do you think?"

"She's done it before, what class are you thinking about?" House asked.

"The professor for the Chemistry class for nursing students is retiring next month and I thought that would be a good class to start her on to see how she does. If she handles that well, then maybe I'll bring her over to the medical school to teach histology or clinical chemistry to the med students," Cuddy said. "She has a master's degree, so she qualifies to teach at the University level."

"As long as it doesn't interfere with my patients, I don't have a problem with it," House said.

Susan was excited. She went to Dr. House's office and he wasn't there. Maybe he was in Wilson's office. She walked around the corner, Wilson's door was open. She peeked in his office and sure enough House was in there with Wilson. "Hey Susan, haven't seen you in a while," Wilson said.

"Guess what," Susan said barely able to contain herself.

House and Wilson looked at her and finally Wilson asked, "What?"

"I get to teach a class, this is sweet!" she said. She started to turn to leave when she heard House.

"And this excites you?" he asked.

"Yep," Susan said.

"Whatever makes you happy," House said.

Susan left and went back to the lab. As she passed the conference room she noticed Jeffrey was visiting with Martha. She wondered what that was about; it was odd that Jeffery was even in this part of the hospital. If Dr. House saw him in there, he would give Jeffery no end of grief. Susan pondered whether or not to warn Martha about Jeffery. That man was no end of trouble, always gossiping and trying to catch Dr. House doing something inappropriate to get him fired. It was actually rather funny, Dr. House was always a step ahead of Jeffery; foiling him at every attempt.

"I tell you they are up to something," Jeffery said. "I saw them leave exam room one in the clinic the other day together, and there wasn't a patient in the room. The duty nurse said that Dr. House wanted to talk to her privately. I bet there wasn't a lot of _talking_ going on."

"I've noticed that he is a lot nicer to her than he is anybody else," Martha said. "But I've worked with her and other than this overwhelming desire to impart her knowledge on you, she seems pretty nice. But I don't think she's nearly as smart as everybody seems to think she is. So far I haven't seen her do anything remarkably difficult. I can't understand why Dr. House even has his own lab tech."

"Rumor has it that the board forced her on him because he kept running off lab techs in the main lab," Jeffery explained. "But he sure isn't interested in running her off, if you know what I mean."

Back in the lab, Susan had finished creating her flow diagrams and started writing the accompanying procedures. This part was easy and she was able to whip out several of them before she was called into differential.

As she walked in Chase, Taub and Foreman were arguing about how to differentiate between two different conditions that had identical symptoms that the patient was displaying. Martha kept trying to interrupt with alternative diagnosis that House kept discounting for one reason or another further frustrating Martha. "I guess we just treat for one of the conditions and hope that's the right one," Taub said.

"But if we are wrong, the treatment will kill the patient," Chase pointed out. "There has to be a way to distinguish the diseases."

"What are the two diseases that you are debating?" Susan asked.

Foreman rattled them off and Susan followed up with another question, "So, what is the difference between the two diseases?"

"Each disease is a different protein deficiency," Martha said finally feeling a part of the discussion. "But there is no diagnostic test that will distinguish the two proteins."

"And why is that?" Susan asked.

"The two proteins are too similar," Foreman said. "They are both very small proteins, only 63 and 66 kDaltons with no distinguishing characteristics that can be qualitatively tested for."

"Sounds like to me they have distinguishing characteristics, you just said they were 63 and 66 kD. That's not much difference, but I bet we can distinguish them under the right conditions" said Susan.

"And _you_ think _you_ know how test for them? _I've_ already told you there _isn't_ any test," Martha said.

Susan chose to ignore Martha's remark when Dr. House spoke up.

"What are you getting at Susan?" Dr. House asked.

"Western," said Susan

Dr. House's left side of his mouth turned up every so slightly, which for him was tantamount to an ear to ear grin. He nodded every so slightly and said, "Go do."

"Keep the patient stable for 24 hours and I'll have an answer for you" Susan said as she left the room.

"What does she mean, "Western"?" asked Martha.

"Hide and watch," House told her.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five:

Susan spent the next several hours preparing and mixing up a medium-low density acrylamide gel for electrophoresis. It was a delicate balance, if the density was too low; the two proteins were so close in size that they would run together showing as a broad band, if it was too high they would get stuck together at the top and never separate. After the gel was polymerized, she loaded the gel with the patient specimen at several dilutions, her own specimen and since she had some, she used Georgia's specimen as well for comparison. She added two different sets of low molecular weight markers as bookends on the gel. She started the electric current and waited several hours while she ran the gel at a very slow pace to resolve the proteins as much as possible. When the gel was complete, she plated it against a membrane and set it up to run overnight to transfer the proteins from the gel to the membrane.

The next morning, Susan was in the lab early. She disconnected the transfer chamber and removed the membrane from the gel. She started the process to visualize the protein bands. When she was done, she photographed the membrane and took it to Dr. House.

Ever in his teaching mode, Dr. House asked Masters to interpret the gel.

Martha studied the photo, but not knowing what she was really looking at, she was unable to make a determination.

"Susan?" Dr. House said

"The patient is missing the 63kD protein." Susan said.

"How can you tell?" Martha asked.

Susan went on to describe the gel. She explained to Martha that the purpose of the gel was to distinguish proteins and while it wasn't used much in the diagnostic world; it was a common tool in research. Susan went on to show her the molecular weight makers and how from that she was able to determine which proteins were in the molecular weight range. Then she showed Martha her own specimen and Georgia's specimen and how both proteins were present and how that compared to the patient specimen, showed which protein was missing.

"How did you know that yours and Georgia's specimen would have both proteins?" Martha asked.

"I'm not sick," Susan said. "I use myself as a control a lot, its standard practice in a research laboratory. I have Dr. House or one of the fellows pull my blood every so often and I use my own serum for a lot of things. I used Georgia's specimen, because I had it there. I also knew that she should have both proteins because we've already diagnosed her with cancer which is unrelated to these two diseases. It was just another confirmation that I was looking at the correct bands of proteins. This is a very qualitative test and there are a lot of comparisons that have to be done in order to identify the protein. They don't have banners on them that say 'By the way, I'm a 63kD protein'".

Martha was suddenly ashamed for her attitude toward Susan, "You're a good teacher, Susan," she said.

"Thank you," said Susan. "I hope my students will think so as well."

Noticing the looks of confusion on the faces of the rest of the team she told them that Dr. Cuddy had assigned her to teach the nursing chemistry class when that professor retired in a month. The team was happy for her and each congratulated her on her new position.

"You'll still be working with us though, right?" Martha asked.

"She's not getting out of here that easily," said House. "The rest of you go treat our patient."

The team walked out to start treating the patient leaving House and Susan alone in the conference room. "I think you might have finally won Masters over," he said.

"Maybe, I know she'll come around at some point," Susan answered. "I'm not really worried about Martha. Jeffrey on the other hand…"

"Oh, don't worry about Nurse Jeffrey, I've got something special planned for him, but I'm going to need your help," House explained his plan to Susan who agreed to play her part. This was going to be fun.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six:

Back in the lab Susan continued to work on her procedure manual. She was nearly finished writing the procedures. She had a few more to do, and then she had to create the title and signature pages for Dr. House to sign. The medical director for the main lab had made it clear that he would not sign her procedure manuals. Her lab was specific for Dr. House's team; therefore he would have to be the medical director for her lab. Before she got Dr. Cuddy involved, Susan looked up the CLIA requirements for medical director to make sure that Dr. House qualified as one. Normally, medical directors had to be pathologists and Dr. House was not a pathologist but more than likely there was a way that he would qualify. As she studied the regs, she realized that he would qualify under the second option which stated that the medical director had to be a doctor of medicine or osteopathy and have a least one year experience supervising in a non-waived laboratory. Dr. House had plenty of laboratory supervision experience under his belt with as many years as he had been at PPTH with so many fellows doing the lab work instead of lab techs. She would run this by Dr. Cuddy and the Quality Manager to make sure and go from there.

She decided to call it a day and readied her things to leave. She washed her hands and reached for a paper towel. The dispenser was empty. She opened the cabinet to get one a new package from the bottom shelf, and they were gone. She looked where she found them yesterday and they weren't there. Sighing, she started her search through every cabinet in the lab. She found them on the top shelf in her supply closet. There wasn't anything for her to climb on in here, so she drug her desk chair to the closet, stood on the seat and reached up to get the towels. She still couldn't reach them. Looking around she spied a yard stick hanging on nail in the corner of the closet. She grabbed it and while standing on the chair, she used the stick to knock off all the paper towel packages onto the floor. She then put the towels back where they belonged and refilled the towel dispenser. She started to turn away, but on second thought she grabbed one package of the towels and hid it in the bottom drawer of another cabinet.

Susan made her way to Dr. Wilson's office. She hadn't checked in with him in several days and thought she should probably spend a few minutes to catch him up with everything. Having done that, she went into Dr. House's empty office. Martha was studying in the conference room and noticed Susan putting something on House's desk. When Susan left, she went into the office. She noticed a sealed envelope on his desk with his name on it and a heart drawn next to his name. She picked up the envelope and noticed that it had a nice smell that she recognized from somewhere.

The phone rang. Recognizing the caller ID, Susan smiled. It was her daughter. "Laura, how are you sweetheart?" she said when she answered the phone. Susan listened as her daughter caught her up on events at the University. Susan told her all about the new student that Dr. House had on his team and some of the clinic patients he'd had recently. Laura got a kick out of her tale of his elderly patient and how she flirted with him. Eventually Laura got to the reason for her call and Susan replied, "I'll ask him. I can't make any promises, because we never know when a patient is going to require him to stay at the hospital." Laura was satisfied with that and after she hung up Susan called Dr. House. Remarkably enough, Dr. House actually answered his phone. When Susan told him what Laura wanted, he agreed barring any unforeseen circumstances.

Later that night Jeffrey walked in Dr. House's office. The envelope was sitting right on Dr. House's desk where Martha said it would be. He picked it up and smelled it. It smelled like the perfume that Susan sometimes wore. This was going to be great. Jeffery snapped a picture of the envelope and put it back in place.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven:

The next morning, Susan arrived at work carrying a step ladder. Dr. House fell in step next to her and noted the stepladder. "You have your crutch and I have mine," Susan snarked.

"Nice," was his reply.

House made his way to his office and put his stuff away. On his desk was an envelope with his name written on it and a heart drawn next to it. He brought it to his face and closed his eyes as he smelled it. He recognized the perfume. Without opening it, he smiled slightly and put the note in his inside jacket pocket. Jeffrey stood just outside of Dr. House's view. He snapped a few photos and then headed down to the nurses station in the clinic.

In the lab Susan put the step ladder away and started her daily calibration and quality control routine. That complete, she went to her desk to finish up her procedure manual. Two more procedures and she would be done. As she finished the last one, she remembered she needed to call the quality manager. If Dr. House or Dr. Wilson didn't qualify as the medical director for her lab, she was going to have to visit with Dr. Cuddy to resolve her problem. She called the quality manager's assistant and arranged an appointment to meet with him later in the day and then headed up to the conference room to see if any cases had come in.

Dr. Cuddy walked in House's office with a patient file. "You've got a case," she said as she handed him the file.

"Can't take it," he said handing it back. "I have plans."

"Would those plans have anything to do with Susan?" she asked. "You know, there is a bit of gossip going around the hospital."

"There's always a bit of gossip going around the hospital," he replied.

"Take the case," she said. "He has a fever."

"Oh wow!" House said, "The patient has a fever, let's put our best diagnostician on it. Give it to somebody else."

"He's already been to several 'somebody else's'," she said refusing to take the file back.

"Let me out of clinic duty today and I'll take it," he said.

"You'll take the case and still do your clinic duty," she said as she leaned over his desk giving him a full view of his two favorite subjects.

He swallowed hard and said, "You owe me. I expect to see you wearing my favorite lingerie tonight – or better yet, nothing at all."

Cuddy looked over her shoulder and batted her eyes at him as she turned to walk out the door. She gave him a little extra swish in her step for good measure.

House smiled to himself and walked in the conference room where his team was gathered.

"The patient has a fever," House said as he entered the room.

The team quit chatting amongst themselves and stared at House. "And….?" Asked Chase.

"That's it, just a fever," he said handing the file to Susan. Susan left the conference room to go make copies for the team. She read the file as she went to the copy room. He was right, no other symptoms, just a recurring fever. When she returned with the copies, Martha was listing the four major causes of fever: infection, autoimmune/connective tissue disease, malignancy and allergic/reactive.

"Great recitation of the text book," House said. "How about we narrow it down a little? Susan, go pull blood for the standard chemistries and blood counts. Masters get the medical history on the patient and get the vitals while you're there. Foreman will supervise you today. The rest of you go look for potential environmental causes. Everybody meet back here in an hour."

An hour later, the team reconvened. Martha started the differential by giving the history of the patient. "The patient is a 22 year old African-American male and has been experiencing periodic fevers. He went to the hospital about three weeks ago, but he said they didn't find the cause. He does smoke, but he says he rarely drinks and he denies doing drugs. He has a slight temperature, but his heart rate, blood pressure and respiration are all within normal limits."

Foreman continued, "His lymph nodes are all normal and his lungs are clear."

Susan picked up the conversation from there, "his blood chemistries are all within normal limits, but on his blood count, his neutrophils are very low."

"How low?" asked Chase.

"0.1," answered Susan.

Dr. House wrote "neutropenia" on the white board below fever. "OK, so what causes fever with neutropenia?" he asked. The fellows started listing the possibilities. Dr House sent the team to perform a bone marrow biopsy while he and Susan went to clinic.

Clinic was slow today and after two hours, Dr. House had seen every patient. Most of the patients seen today had sinus infections or colds and Dr. House sent them away with prescriptions for antibiotics, decongestants, steroids, etc. depending on the situation. Susan only had one blood specimen to run for basic chemistries. As they left the last exam room, Susan asked, "Are you still coming by to pick me up tonight?"

"I'll be there at 6:00," he replied.

"Great, see you then," she said.

Dr. House turned to go into Dr. Cuddy's office while Susan left for her lab. Nurse Jeffery and the duty nurse exchanged glances. "Did you hear that?" he said. The nurse nodded but didn't say anything.

"What have you learned about your patient?" Cuddy asked.

"Not much so far, but he's stable so I'm going ahead with my plans for this evening," he said.

"So, when can I expect you home?" she asked.

"Probably around 10:00 or so," he responded.

Back in the lab, Susan was running the chemistries on the one specimen she had from clinic duty when Martha walked into the lab. "What's up?" she asked.

"Nothing, I just wanted to see what you were doing," Martha responded.

"There was only one patient in the clinic that needed blood work today, so I'm running it and then I'm going to head out early," she said.

Martha looked at her questioningly and Susan continued, "I'm going out tonight."

"Really?" Martha's interest peaked, "going with anybody special?"

Susan thought for a moment, "Well, yes he is rather special," she said.

The analyzer beeped that it was finished. Susan verified the results and sent them both to Dr. House and to the clinic duty nurse for the patient file.

"Well, that's it for me," she said. Susan removed her lab coat and went over to wash her hands. The paper towel dispenser was empty. Susan closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. Before she started looking around the lab, she opened the drawer she had hid one package of paper towels in and of course, it was gone. 'Well, so much for that idea," she told herself. Martha hadn't left the lab yet and was watching Susan as she looked through every cabinet. Finally Susan found the towels. Once again, the towels were on the top shelf – this time on the cabinet over the analyzer. She pulled out her step ladder, but she still couldn't reach the paper towels.

Martha asked, "Why do you store your paper towels where you can't reach them?"

"I don't," she responded. "Somebody is having a great time moving them from place to place every day where I have to climb to get them."

She stepped down off the ladder and went into the supply closet to get the yard stick she had used the day before. Before she climbed back up the step ladder, she put a piece of cardboard over the opening on the analyzer so that nothing could fall inside and damage the probes. Then she climbed on the step ladder and using the stick, knocked down the packages of paper towels. Martha helped her put them back on the correct shelf and asked, "Who do you think is doing this?" she asked.

"Oh, I rather expect it's my 7-foot tall three-legged boss," she replied. "Taub is barely taller than me so it'd be too much work for him, Chase is off in his own world right now chasing every skirt he can find and Foreman just doesn't care. On the other hand, House loves to play practical jokes and this is right up his alley. Well, I gotta get – so I'll see you later."

Susan left Martha standing there looking after her. Martha smiled to herself, "They're playing games together, they do have something going on" she thought as she pulled her phone out of her pocket.

That evening House pulled up in front of Susan's apartment. He got out of his car and knocked on her door. Susan answered the door and as she stepped out House gave her an approving look and said, "You look nice this evening."

"You're not so bad yourself," she replied.

House walked her to the passenger side of the car and opened the door for her. As she stepped inside his hand rested gently on her back. He closed the door for her and walked around to the driver side of the car and got in.

Frame after frame the camera clicked away, "This is great!" Jeffrey said to himself as he followed the car leaving with his lens. He couldn't wait to get these downloaded to his computer for a closer look.

House and Susan walked into the auditorium and found a seat. On the stage were two grand pianos. The music director got on stage and thanked everybody for attending the freshman recital. There were seven freshman piano students and six of them would be playing a solo piece, and there would also be one piano duet. At the end he would announce where the audience could go to meet and speak with the musicians. The room darkened and a young man entered the stage, took a small bow and sat at one of the pianos. He started playing a classical piece that Susan didn't recognize, but the young man was playing beautifully. The piece lasted for 10 minutes and he hadn't skipped a beat. When he was finished, he received a sounding applause from the audience. An hour and five students later Laura entered the stage. She took a small bow and went to the piano on the right and started playing her piece. House recognized it as Chopin's "Raindrop" and Laura was playing it beautifully. House looked over at Susan, she was smiling and her blue eyes sparkled with pride as Laura's hands moved over the entire range of the piano. House had to admit that Laura was very talented. She had practiced her piece at his apartment several weeks ago, but he hadn't been there at the time and hadn't heard her play until now. He was impressed. This piece wasn't quite as long as most of the pieces had been and 6 minutes after it started, it was over. The audience applauded, but Laura didn't move from the piano. While she was still sitting there another young lady entered the stage, took her bow and sat down at the second piano. The girls looked at each other and then they began. It was a piano duet by Mozart. Susan recognized it as the duet that Laura had wanted to play for several years but hadn't advanced to the point that she was able to do it. The two girls played beautifully together. The piece lasted a full 15 minutes and when they were finished, the audience gave them a standing ovation. Susan was so proud she was moved to tears. House put his arm over her shoulder and gave her a quick squeeze before he dropped his arm back down to his side. He hadn't known Laura very long, but he felt an unfamiliar swelling of pride in his heart as he listened to the applause his niece and her duet partner were receiving. They sat back down as the music director came back on stage. He thanked everybody for coming again and directed them to the lobby to meet and speak with the young musicians.

House and Susan filed out of the auditorium with the rest of the crowd and as they entered the lobby Susan started looking around for Laura. She couldn't see around the crowd, but being taller than most, it wasn't long before House spotted her. He maneuvered Susan around the crowd until they reached Laura. Susan gave Laura a hug and told her how proud she was of her. House stood there until Susan was finished and then Laura turned to him, "Thank you so much for coming Uncle Greg, I was really hoping you would be able to make it." House nodded and said that he was impressed with her talent. Laura beamed with the compliment. The school photographer was milling around taking photos of the event and asked Laura if she would like her photo taken with her parents. Laura told him that she would love to have her picture taken but as she was starting to explain the 'parents' part, he just nodded and shot their photo without listening. He moved on before she could correct him and looked over at her mother. "Mom,.." she started.

"Don't worry about it," Susan said. "He's obviously in a hurry and it's not worth the effort."

Susan asked House if he had time for them to take Laura to dinner before they headed back. He did, so they took Laura to a nice restaurant and House even paid. After dinner, they dropped Laura off at her dormitory and headed back. "I didn't mean for you to pay for dinner," Susan said.

"It's fine," he said. "It's not often I get to take out my sister and her daughter. She's very talented; I enjoyed listening to her play."

"I was afraid you would find it boring," Susan said.

"It was boring, but it was still nice," he said.

As he pulled in front of Susan's apartment, Susan leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks again for coming, see you tomorrow," she said as she got out of the car. House waited for her to go inside and then pulled out into the street. As he pulled around the corner, he saw someone with a camera pointed at him and he smiled knowingly.

At home, House pulled off his jacket and walked into the living room. Cuddy was sitting curled up on her couch in her yoga pants and a tank top enjoying a cup of tea while reading a journal. "How was the recital?" she asked as she looked up at House.

He leaned down to give her a kiss and then walked around the couch and sat down. "Boring, like most recitals," he said, "she has a lot of talent though. I was impressed with her skill."

"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. I know it meant a lot to the both of them for you to go," Cuddy said.

"Just don't expect me to do anything else for a while, I've done a good deed and now I'm over quota," he said as he leaned back and closed his eyes. Suddenly he opened them, "Hey!" He said. "You're not wearing my favorite lingerie."

"As I recall, I was supposed to wear your favorite lingerie or better yet nothing at all," she said.

"Well?" he asked.

Cuddy got up and walked by him and around the couch. As she passed behind on her way to their room, her tank top landed on his head. House took the piece of clothing off the top of his head and looked at it. He smiled, got up and followed her down the hall.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight:

The next morning House walked in his office and stopped short. Something was wrong. He looked around. At first he couldn't see what was bothering him, and then he focused on his desk. Bally. He picked up the ball – it was about 1/3rd the size that it should be. Somebody replaced Bally with an identical tennis ball. He looked in the conference room; the fellows were studying the patient's file. They must have the results from the bone marrow biopsy. House walked into the room carrying the tennis ball.

"We have the results from the bone marrow….hey, what happened to your ball?" asked Taub.

"That's what I was going to ask you," House replied.

The fellows all looked at him. It was obvious from their expressions that they didn't have any idea what happened to his ball.

House put the tennis ball in his pocket and picked up his marker. "What did the bone marrow biopsy tell us?" he asked.

Foreman answered the question, "There is a decreased production of the bone marrow and what is there is hypercellular but with very few mature neutrophils."

"So what would cause lower neutrophil production?" House asked.

"Toxic exposure, infection or even congenital mutations," Martha offered.

"We didn't find any cause of toxic exposure at the patient's home, and unless he lied about his drug use, it doesn't seem a likely cause. A lot of cocaine is cut with levamisole which causes neutropenia." Taub offered.

"He's not showing any evidence of drug use. His tox screen was clean, there are no injection sites and his nasal passages are clear. He would have to have levamisole exposure several times per week to cause neutropenia and that would be evident on his physical exam." Chase said.

"OK. Assuming no toxic exposure, and you know how much I hate assuming anything, regardless of whether the cause is infection or a congenital mutation, the treatment is the same, we increase neutrophil production. Give the patient G-CSF to stimulate neutrophil production and follow up with vancomycin and ceftazidime to decrease the chance of any infections from taking hold while the neutrophil level is so low." House said. "If he comes back with a recurrence, we'll look at the possible mutations."

"That's out of character for you," Martha said. "You always need to solve the puzzle."

"We have solved the puzzle, the patient has neutropenia caused from low neutrophil production in the bone marrow and we are treating him for the condition. The tests for the different mutations are very complicated and not…."

"And your most favored lab tech is incapable of doing the test," Martha said smugly.

The look that House gave Martha caused her to subconsciously push her chair backwards right into Susan who had walked in the conference room during the conversation. House started to reply, but Susan waived him off, "Regardless of whether I have experience performing the test or not, I am capable of following a protocol as well as anybody, Martha. The fact is that there are very few laboratories that offer sequencing of the ELA2 gene and we don't have the capability here at PPTH, either in the hospital or the research laboratories." Susan handed House a sheet with information on the nearest laboratories that offered sequencing of ELA2 as she sat down. "Since the treatment is the same regardless," she continued, "we would prefer to treat the patient and send him home than make him wait several weeks on an outside laboratory just so we can satisfy our curiosity. If it's caused by an infection, the antibiotics you're giving him will take care of the problem, if it's not an infection, he'll be back and we'll run the gene sequence."

House dismissed the team to treat the patient. He was fuming. He pulled the tennis ball out of his pocket and threw it against the wall.

"Hmm, Bally seems to have shrunk." Susan said.

House snapped around and looked at Susan. His face softened, "Yeah – about that…" he started.

Susan smiled and said, "Don't worry about Martha, Greg. She's just trying to mark her territory."

"She doesn't have any territory to mark, she's a student," he replied.

"Yes, she's a student and she's going to be a very good physician one day. She's learning from the best team in the country. This is all going to blow over and she'll be fine," Susan looked House straight in the eye; "You don't have to fight my battles for me. I can take care of myself."

House nodded and went into his office and turned on his computer.

The team entered the elevator on their way to the patient's room. Foreman hit the stop button and the elevator came to a halt. He turned and looked at Masters, "_What_ is your problem with Susan?" he asked.

"She's just a lab tech, she doesn't belong on the diagnostics team," Martha replied.

"She's a very valuable member of our team," Chase said. "If it hadn't been for her, we probably would have lost the last patient. And you have to agree that she's teaching you a thing or two as well."

"She has, but nothing that I couldn't have learned just by reading a textbook," Martha replied.

"There's nothing like hands on instruction," Foreman continued, "and Susan is one of the best lab techs I've ever worked with. You need to back off."

"Well, she sure has House wrapped around his finger, they've got something going on between them, and it's not fair to Dr. Cuddy. Nurse Jeffrey has quite a few incriminating photos of them together," Martha said as she crossed her arms defensively.

"Like what?" asked Taub.

"Did you know they went out on a date last night? Jeffrey has photos of him helping her into his car and one of her kissing him on the cheek. And this morning there is a photo in the community section of the Trenton paper of them together with a college student that indicates that House is her father," Martha explained.

Chase laughed, "You really need to get your facts straight before you jump to conclusions. That wasn't a date, it was a piano recital."

Martha just looked confused.

Taub explained further, "Whoever took the photo for the paper didn't stop long enough to get his or her facts straight. House is not the father of that student, he's her uncle. Susan is his sister."

"Most of the hospital doesn't know that fact, so keep it to yourself;" Foreman commanded as he released the elevator to continue.

Martha was silent for the rest of the ride to the patient's floor. She felt ridiculous getting caught up in Jeffrey's plot. No wonder House seemed to get along with Susan so well. She really didn't have any reason to dislike Susan. She had been nothing but accommodating to her even while Martha had been so unkind. She needed to apologize.

The door to the balcony opened and Wilson looked up long enough to see House walk in and sit down on the couch. "Did you want something?" Wilson asked.

"Nope, Bally's missing," said House.

"Do you know who took it?" asked Wilson

"I have a pretty good idea," said House

"Well, I imagine she has a pretty good idea of who keeps moving her paper towels where she can't reach them too," Wilson remarked.

"That's different," said House. "I'm supposed to tease her, that's what big brothers do….I think. Bally helps me solve cases."

"So does Susan. Georgia's not responding to treatment," Wilson said changing the subject.

House didn't say anything for a moment, and then he asked, "How long?"

"Probably just a few months," Wilson replied.

Back in the lab, Susan sat at her desk and thought about the events of the morning. She wondered how long it would be before Martha accepted her presence on the team. It hadn't taken Taub and 13 even a week to accept her. Martha had been on the team for several weeks now and still treated her like she was a mere pawn in a chess game. "I guess she's well on her way to become a typical egotistical doctor," she said to herself.

"Who's egotistical? And who are you talking to?" asked Cuddy

"Myself; to the second question; and most of the doctors around here to the first question – yourself excepted, of course," Susan said with a grin.

"Of course," Cuddy returned the smile. "Are you doing OK? I hear you're having issues with a couple hospital staff members."

"I'm fine," Susan replied. "I think Nurse Jeffrey is trying to cause problems for House though."

"Well, that's nothing new," replied Cuddy. "House can handle Jeffrey."

Cuddy got up to leave and after she had left the room, Susan opened her desk drawer and pulled out Bally. She turned it in her hands a few times, bounced it on the floor and then put it back and locked the drawer. It was lunch time so she headed to the cafeteria. She got her tray and sat down alone at a table. It wasn't long before another tray appeared and Dr. House sat down. He promptly stole several of Susan's fries. "I suppose I need to start getting a side of salad if I want you to quit stealing my food," she said. "It's too bad I don't like salad. Where's Wilson?"

"He's with Georgia," House replied.

"How is she doing?" Susan asked.

"Not well," he said.

"I'm sorry," she replied.

House nodded. "You seem kind of down today," he said.

"A little maybe, I'm fine." Susan replied.

"Spill it," he said as he stole a couple more fries.

"It's nothing. I just get tired of having to prove myself over and over. I do my job and I do it the best that I can. I'm friendly with everybody, don't cause issues or spread rumors and what do I get for it? A nurse spreading rumors of impropriety that _everybody_ in this hospital seems to believe and a medical student that thinks that I'm beneath her," Susan said. "I'm fine, it just gets old. Did you see that photo in the Trenton community paper? That's just added fuel to the fire." She said as she stared down at her plate.

Suddenly something hit Susan in the face. It was the straw cover from Houses straw. He'd torn off one end and blew it off his straw at her. Susan laughed, wadded it up in a ball and threw it back at him.

Across the room, Martha sat watching the scene in front of her with amusement. Jeffery sat down at her table and said, "Did you look at the photos I emailed to you last night?"

"Jeffery, you really need to mind your own business," Martha said as she got up to leave.

Jeffrey was stunned at Martha's behavior, but shrugged it off. He had just about everything he needed to make his case with HR and Dr. Cuddy and didn't need her anymore. It wouldn't be long now before Dr. House was kicked out on his heels. Susan would probably have to leave too, but that was her fault for saddling up with him.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine:

Susan went back to the lab. With all the distractions lately, she hadn't yet finished her procedure manual. With the Quality Manager's agreement, she was able to have Dr. House sign all the procedures as the medical director of her lab. She took her manual up to his office and stood in front of his desk. "You want me to sign every title page in that book?" he asked.

"Yep," she answered. "I've got every place marked with a post-it flag. You need to review the procedures and if you agree with them, then you sign the title sheet. If you don't agree with something, let me know and I'll fix it."

"I want my ball back," he said.

"Your ball is right there," she said indicating miniature Bally on his desk.

Dr. House looked at the notebook. It was 4 inches thick of procedures. He looked up at Susan and back down at the notebook, and then back at Susan. "The things I do for you," he said with a sigh. "Leave it."

Susan turned to leave and House interrupted her. She turned around and he said, "I think this is yours," as he tossed the miniature Bally to her.

"Nope, it's yours," Susan said as she placed it back on the stand and left.

There wasn't anything for Susan to do in the lab. Dr. House didn't have clinic today and the patient was responding to treatment. She decided to visit Georgia. When she walked in Georgia's room, the elderly lady's face perked up, "Oh, its Dr. House's arm candy, how are you dear?"

"My name is Susan and I'm not his arm candy – but I'm fine thank you," Susan said. "I hear you're not doing so well."

"Well, if you listen to the gossip around here, everybody else thinks you're his arm candy," Georgia said.

"Yeah, I know what everybody else is saying, but it's not true. Can you keep a secret?" Susan asked.

"Sure," Georgia said. "It's not like I have to keep it for a long time anyway."

"Are you afraid?" Susan asked.

"No, not really. I've lived a good life. I had a darling husband who was the love of my life and a wonderful, if a bit uptight, son. Everybody has to go sometime you know. So what's your secret?" Georgia asked.

Susan bent down and whispered in Georgia's ear, "Oh, well that's sweet. How lucky he is to have you. Now that I know that, I can see it. That's why you look so cute together," she said.

Susan and Georgia visited for a while before Susan thought she should go back to the lab. "Come by and visit any time dear," Georgia said as she left.

"Thank you, I will," Susan said.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

When Susan got back to the lab, her procedure manual was sitting on her desk. She glanced through it and House had signed every title page. To her amazement, he had actually read the procedures and didn't just sign the title pages. She could see his pen marks on the sheets as he ran through the steps of each procedure. Susan put the manual on her bookcase and sat down at her desk. Something caught her eye and she looked down and to the left. The lock had been picked on her desk drawer and the drawer left open. Bally was gone. OK, well House had been in here and he took Bally back, no problem. It was close to time to leave, so Susan went over to wash her hands and as she reached for a towel, she noticed the dispenser was empty again. She started through her ritual of looking through every cabinet, the supply closet, the shelf above the analyzer – no paper towels. She thought for a minute, grabbed a cart and headed to House's office. She pushed the cart into his office and said, "I need my paper towels."

"And I need my ball," House said.

"I don't have your ball," Susan replied.

"Well, I don't have it," he said.

"Yes you do, you picked the lock on my desk and took your ball back," Susan said.

"No, I didn't. I don't have my ball," said House

"Well, then somebody else has your ball – because it's not in my desk drawer," Susan said.

House glowered at her. "This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't taken my ball," said House

"And I wouldn't have taken your ball, if you didn't keep moving my paper towels," Susan replied.

"Your towels are in the conference room," he said obviously upset because his ball was now really missing.

Susan found the towels and took them back to the lab. She wondered who would take his ball. When she got to the lab, she went through every cabinet and drawer looking to see if the person had just moved it somewhere else. She opened her desk drawer again and noticed an envelope she hadn't seen before. She opened the envelope and inside were photos of her and Dr. House. Some of them were as recent as the other night when they went to Laura's recital. Somebody had taken House's ball and left these photos in its place. As Susan went through the photos, a note fell out. As she read the note, Susan had to laugh, this was great. She couldn't believe she was being blackmailed, and with these photos on top of that. At that moment, Martha walked in to the lab and sat down in front of Susan's desk.

"I'm sorry," Martha said.

"I know," Susan replied.

"I was stupid," Martha said.

"Yes, you were," Susan replied. "But you can make up for it, if you'll help me out."

Susan showed Martha the photos and told what she wanted her to do. Martha agreed and left to go see Dr. House. It wasn't going to be a fun visit, but she deserved it for what she had done.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11:

The next morning Susan found miniature Bally sitting on her desk with a note to go to HR. When she entered the HR director's office, Jeffrey, Cuddy and House were all already there. "What's up?" she asked as she entered the room.

"I'm sorry to do this to you Susan; you seemed like such a nice person. But you should know better than to consort with Dr. House," Jeffrey said. "I have evidence of impropriety between Dr. House and Susan." He handed a set of photos to Dr. Cuddy.

Dr. Cuddy went through the photos one at a time. "Oh, look at this House, you're being such a gentleman, I didn't know you had it in you. Oh! And look here, this one is _so_ sweet with Susan kissing you on the cheek."

Jeffrey's eyes popped out of his head. The longer Dr. Cuddy looked at the photos the more slack jawed he became. This was not the response he was expecting. When she finished going through the photos she asked Jeffrey if these were hers to keep. Jeffrey was tongue tied, unable to say anything.

The HR director got Jeffrey's attention. "Mr. Jeffrey, this is the second time you've been caught trying to discredit Dr. House. Last time you were given a six week suspension without pay. This time there will be no suspension, you're fired. Security will be here to help you pack your things and escort you out of the building."

Jeffrey turned to leave and the HR director added, "Oh, and next time you decide to blackmail somebody, it might behoove you to do your research first. Photos showing caring affections between brother and sister aren't exactly incriminating evidence."

As Jeffrey was escorted out of the room, Susan looked at House and said, "You realize it's going to be all over the hospital now that we're related."

House nodded, "I'm OK with that."

Susan went back to her lab. It was time to start her daily QC. She went to the sink and washed her hands. She reached for a towel. The dispenser was empty and she had to laugh.

House walked in his office and stopped short. Something wasn't right. He looked at his desk – Bally was there, but it was slightly askew on the stand. He walked over to his desk and saw the reason why. Miniature Ball-y was sitting side by side with Bally on the stand. The left side of House's mouth turned upward as he reached for miniature Bally. He tossed it in the air a couple times and set it back on the stand next to Ball-y - right where it belonged.

The End.

_Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think and if you think the storyline is worthy of another sequal._


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